May 2021
-
Traffic control with Neil
Rain, hail or shine, you can always count on the wonderful traffic controllers to smile, despite being on their feet all day, while directing traffic at our COVID-19 Testing Clinic at the Northern Centre For Health Education and Research (NCHER) at Northern Hospital Epping. Neil Florence has been a traffic controller at NCHER since October last year, and has become somewhat of a minor celebrity in the last week, often spotted in the background of the numerous television reports from the hospital on our COVID-19 Testing Clinic. “It’s an interesting job,” Neil said. “I normally get here about 45 minutes…
-
Northern Health doing a good jab!
In response to the current COVID-19 situation in Melbourne, in particular in the northern suburbs, Northern Health has extended vaccination clinic hours and increased staffing to meet current demand and help vaccinate as many community members as possible. “We have seen a significant increase in vaccination bookings over the last week. We are very pleased people are coming in to be vaccinated and we have seen a large increase over the last week. We have gone from 300-400 people vaccinated per day over the last few weeks to 493 vaccinations on Monday, 590 on Tuesday, 691 on Wednesday and over…
-
National Palliative Care Week: It’s more than you think.
National Palliative Care Week 2021 is being marked with the theme ‘Palliative Care It’s more than you think,‘ which seeks to raise awareness about the many benefits of quality palliative care. One of the great myths about palliative care is that it is only a synonym for end-of-life care. It is so much more than that. Says Barbara Watson, a Registered Nurse in the Palliative Care Unit, “We are very lucky to have a beautiful modern facility to work within at Palliative Care at Northern Health. However it’s what happens inside this structure that we are most proud of.” Barbara goes…
-
ICU (T)Error Room: Getting it right for our patients
A Medication (T)Error Room has been set up in our Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Northern Hospital Epping to help improve and reduce medication based related incidents to zero. The room is designed to create a realistic and engaging environment for ICU doctors and nurses where they are invited to identify all the deliberate medication prescription and administration errors in the room, that are commonly seen in the ICU. Narkitaa Van Ekeren, Nurse Unit Manager, ICU, said the room is tailored to incidents relevant to our ICU over the last 12 months. “It’s a fantastic initiative, it’s innovative and it…
-
Helping our IBD patients
Northern Health has a world-leading, expert and rapidly growing Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) service, dedicated to the patient-focused care of those with this lifelong, potentially debilitating condition, aiming to improve their quality of life and achieve disease remission. Our IBD service is the fastest growing service in Australia, with 1,200 new patients forecast by the end of the year. Patients with IBD have high rates of psychological morbidity, stress, depression and anxiety which can trigger and exacerbate IBD progression and symptoms. To help patients, Victoria Teoh, Senior Clinical Health Psychologist, who has years of experience in supporting the psychological wellbeing…
-
National Reconciliation Week: More than a word.
The 2021 National Reconciliation Week theme, More than a word. Reconciliation takes action, urges reconciliation movement towards braver and more impactful actions, and asks people to take this awareness and knowledge as a springboard for action. National Reconciliation Week is acknowledged between 27 May and 3 June. Here at Northern Health, we are putting our words into action. Our first ever Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) set out to create opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, their communities and organisations, to partner with us and influence the design and implementation of accessible and patient-centred services. Two years later and three…
-
Staff Physiotherapy Clinic opens
To look after our staff the best possible way, Northern Health’s Occupational Health and Safety Department is delighted to announce the launch of the Staff Health Clinic – Physiotherapy. The clinic is a new service designed to look after the musculoskeletal health of Northern Health staff. “We are ready to start taking patients from today. We had a trial run this week with a few test patients, which has gone well. We are running Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and we are happy to see staff come in,” explained Tom Cooper, Physiotherapist, who leads the clinic. The clinic will be seeing…
-
Becoming a Patient Service Assistant
Matthew Moore is excited to become a Patient Service Assistant (PSA). PSAs are responsible for a variety of tasks including cleaning on the wards, cleaning beds when a patient is discharged and transportation throughout the hospital. Matthew, who has autism, recently completed a Certificate III in Health Services Assistance at Victoria University. As part of the certificate, Matthew underwent placement training at Northern Hospital Epping. “I decided to do the PSA course because I spent most of my younger years in the hospital, and I thought what better way than to give back,” Matthew said. “I am looking forward to…